Career Highlights
- Studied law at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, and film at UCLA
- Won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2005
- In 2000, Variety magazine named him as one of its "Ten Directors to Watch".
- Also acts; can be seen in In Enemy Hands, and Stargate SG-1
- Won a Diane Thomas Screenwriting Award at UCLA; judged by Steven Spielberg and Michael Douglas
- One of his first projects as director, The Storekeeper, won 13 awards at international film festivals
Gavin Hood - filmmaker, screenwriter, producer and actor – graduated with a law degree from the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa. His passion was film but thought that wasn’t an option in South Africa. After coming across a fascinating criminal law case Hood decided he had to turn it into a story and went to UCLA to study screenwriting and directing. His 1999 film on the criminal law case, A Reasonable Man, won Best Film and Best Anglophone Film at the 2001 All Africa Film Awards along with Best Director and the Award for Excellence in Screenwriting.
Hood was commissioned to make short, educational dramas for the South African Department of Health that earned a South African Emmy. He also directed other award winning films such a The Storekeeper, In Desert and Wilderness, Tsotsi, Rendition and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Tsotsi was based on a novel by the same name by South African writer Athold Fugard. It tells the story of a young gang leader in Johannesburg and won the People's Choice Award at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival.
Our Interview
Gavin Hood joined ThinkTalk host Zack Sherwood for a discussion on his career and his movie Tsotsi. Mike also took some time to answer questions from students and give his best advice for aspiring directors.
